by A. N. Latro
He can feel the recoil as the gun discharges. His vision is being invaded by tiny points of light, and soon he will lose consciousness, if his wind pipe doesn't collapse first. He hears the soft “umph” from Mikie, feels the huge hand around his throat loosen involuntarily, but only for a moment before the grip clamps down. Mikie throws their weight to the side—to Seth's right side—so that the chair back crushes Seth's arm right below the elbow. He cries out unintelligibly, and the jolt of the fall knocks loose Mikie's grip. Seth sucks in a sharp breath, but he can't move: one arm has been rendered useless at its source, and the other is trapped. He can't force open his eyes.
“Seth!”
He hears his name. It's Emma's voice. His only thought is that she didn't listen, she didn't leave him when the guns started popping. He knew she wouldn't. He knows he has rolled off of his uncle enough for Mikie to use the gun that had been trapped. Yes, thinks Seth, he's about to get shot again.
Mikie straightens slowly, his gun hanging at his side, his posture riddled with blazing pain He too is making a guttural noise, blood in his lungs. He glares down at the fallen prince, and Emma trembles, furious. Seth is bleeding, his shoulder a mess of bullet wound and blood. His arm is broken, hanging limply where Mikie snapped it. She steps forward. “Uncle!”
Mikie doesn’t even look at her. His lips twist, and he spits on Seth. His gun swings up, and Emma makes an involuntary noise of protest.
Relief makes her knees weak when the gun keeps swinging, past Seth, past Rama and Tinney, to land on her. She stares down the barrel of her uncle, the man who looked out for her and pampered her, and all she can feel is giddy relief that it is her, not Seth.
And a niggling worry—what will he do, when she is gone? Who will help him carry his demons?
Mikie’s finger twitches, and she hears a low noise, foreign, before something slams into her, throwing her to the side. She lands hard as the gun fires again, and looks up. Time seems to slow as the bullets slam into Rama, hard, gut shots that spray a fine mist of blood. She shrieks, a scream of horrified disbelief as her lover lands on her, covering her with his body and blood.
Seth hears two shots in quick succession, and he flinches with the certainty that he has lived his life with all the whim and grandeur that he had time to learn, but all that follows is a gut-wrenching scream of horror and defiance and loss. Again, it's Emma's voice. Finally, Seth's command to his brain to open his eyes breaks through and his eyelids snap back. At first, everything is blur and smoke. Then, his world becomes his uncle's face as he aims his gun toward Emma.
Seth doesn't think, doesn't need to. He damns the pain to hell with the code and love, and uses what leverage he can create by pressing his upper body against the floor to fling his legs into Mikie's legs. The blow isn't much, but it's enough to knock off Mikie's balance, who roars in rage as bright blood pours onto his nephew.
The gun fires, but it's off-target. Mikie flinches as more screams echo through the room and Tinney shouts.
Seth's body collapses back into the floor, his muscles unable to withstand any more punishment. Three more shots ring through the chaos, followed by a surreal stretch of slow motion in which Seth is sure he can still hear the violins in the garden. Mikie's weight collapses beside Seth, without a face.
Then silence descends, heavy and absolute.
Epilouge
Morgan Estates Headquarters, New York City. August 18th.
It’s been a week since the dinner party, and hell reigned down. She shifts in her chair, listening to Tinney.
The family doctor has been busy, shuttling from one executive suite to the next. They’ve been in lockdown—even the board members have been dismissed and refused audience. She will have to deal with them soon—deal with the inevitable fallout of the dead king.
And the Olivers. Everyone is waiting for their retaliation.
“Ma’am?” Tinney says. They’re in the little room she’s claimed as her office, in Morgan headquarters. The floor is being guarded by his handpicked men, and a handful of Thais who circle the room to the right with furious eyes and itchy trigger fingers.
The shaky alliance is holding, for now. She doesn’t know how much more it can take though.
“Call the Board. I’ll meet with them in the conference room tomorrow at nine,” she says quietly. Tinney nods. “I want them all searched—no one is coming in armed. Do you understand?”
The giant nods again and steps away from the desk. She’s handling the crisis well, he thinks. A regime change is never easy—but this one is especially hard on Emma.
There’s a tap on the door, and she jerks, hand dropping instinctively to her gun. Even here, surrounded by allies and armed guards, she doesn’t feel safe.
Kai stands there, his gold skin pale, dark hair messy around his face. “He’s awake.”
The words make her dizzy, and she stands in a rush. Sways, as much from exhaustion and lack of food as from sheer relief.
Tinney catches her before the Thai can, and she spares him a quick smile of gratitude. Then she straightens and strides out of the office, followed by the guards.
The Thai guns block her approach, until Kai says something soft and sibilant in their musical language. She doesn’t understand the words, but she gets the tone. One gives her a sneering look, and her patience, already frayed, snaps.
“You are here,” she says, coldly, “because I honor your prince and customs. I didn’t have to call you to his side. He forged this alliance, and he’s cemented it with his blood. Will you really question him? Now? Because I will see you dead before I allow anyone to jeopardize what we have built.”
Kai stares at her like he doesn’t know her, and she realizes that he doesn’t. Not this new Emma—no one knows her.
The guards grudgingly move aside, and she enters the room.
Rama is propped against some pillows, his eyes closed as if sleeping. A large bandage is wrapped around his chest, covering the smooth muscles and tattooed skin.
He took two bullets. One in his side, a clean shot. The other had been more difficult—it had lodged in his lung. He had been dying when they rushed him into the family’s medical facilities.
His eyes open slowly, and a smile turns his lips as he stares at her. She fidgets with the hem of her shirt, nervous suddenly. Rama murmurs something, and she feels the air move slightly as the guards leave, shutting the door and closing them in together.
“Come here, Emma,” Rama says. Woodenly, without thinking about the fact that she should bristle at the order, she moves to stand next to the bed. Blood is seeping through the bandage, a faint red against the white.
“How do you feel?” she asks, almost whispering.
“Amazing,” he says, and her gaze snaps to his. She’s stunned by his smile, the relief in his dark, exotic eyes. Eyes that reminded her, so long ago, of the thing she could never have.
Tears burn in her eyes, and concern fills his face. He reaches for her, wincing as the movement pulls at his wounds. “What’s wrong, mali?”
“You were shot, you idiot.” She sniffles, hating that she’s crying. “What were you thinking?”
“Better me than you.”
She stares at him. She had known, of course she had known, that the bullets were meant for her. That he had kept her from being shot. She forces a wry smile. “This alliance is that important to you?”
Rama goes still, watching her with too-dark eyes. “I don’t give a damn about the alliance,” he says, clearly. “Haven’t you figured it out, yet, mali?”
“What?”
He tugs until she relents and steps closer. “I seem to have a weakness for fair-haired royalty,” he murmurs, and she shudders. Caleb has never felt more present than in this moment. “I took those bullets because your cousins aren’t the only ones who will protect you, Emma. I accept the alliance because I trust you. I don’t need this as much as you think—the Ratchaphure are fine without the Morgan’s backing. I want you.”
She fro
wns. “I don’t need another family threatening us.”
He sighs, an aggravated noise. Ignoring the bandage on his chest, he reaches up and pulls her down, moving with lithe grace and speed that makes her blood heat. “Would you, for one second, forget that you are the heir to a syndicate? I’m not here as that—I didn’t take a bullet from your uncle because of that. I don’t give a fuck about your syndicate.”
She goes stiff in his arms, and his hand comes up, smoothing over her hair, easing a worry line that’s formed around her eyes. “I care that you are safe. I care that you aren’t hurt. I love you, mali. You. Not the syndicate or your cousin, or your king. Just you.”
“Rama,” she whispers, stunned. He kisses her before she can protest, his lips hot and hungry on hers. There have been too many secrets, too many lies. She hasn’t truly been in his arms, without the threat of being found, or the watching eye of her cousin, in too long. Now he is in the very heart of the empire, the heir in his arms, and he doesn’t care. He’s tired of waiting for the perfect moment—there never will be one, not with her.
He feels the moment she surrenders, her body going soft and pliant, even as her hand comes up to twist into his hair, holding him at the precise angle she wants as she kisses him.
Even in this, she is a queen, taking what she wants.
Dimly, he is aware of the door behind them opening, slow steps crossing the room. Not for all his kingdom would he pull away from her, right now. Her lips whisper over his, softening, pulling away slowly. It’s a kiss full of promise, one that makes his heart trip.
Emma blinks slowly and twists on the bed. She should be surprised to see Seth—he’s been confined to bed rest after the surgery to remove the bullet in his shoulder—but she’s not.
She squeezes Rama’s hand, aware of Seth’s hot gaze on her. “Get some sleep, Rama,” she says. “I need to speak with Seth.” She starts to rise and take Seth’s arm. He stops her, stepping toward the bed.
“Thank you,” he says, hoarsely. Something flickers in his eyes, and he looks down, taking a steadying breath. “You took bullets meant for my family—and you saved the life of the only person who matters to me. I’m in your debt for that.”
The world bottoms out. Seth Morgan does not owe debts. Not to anyone—certainly not a foreign syndicate. Rama inclines his head, slightly. “She is worth two bullets, and more, my friend.”
A smile twitches Seth’s lips, and he nods.
“You need rest,” Emma says firmly, and he reaches down, placing a steady hand on Rama’s blanket clad ankle. Then Seth allows himself to be led back to his room.
Emma fusses over him, plumping his pillows and twitching his blankets straight. He lets her, without protest—the past few days have been hell on her, and she needs to burn off the restless energy.
And it is soothing, being near her. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees Mikie, the gun pointed at Emma, feels that insane, spine-crushing fear.
He had gambled that Mikie would never hurt the favorite princess. Emma was sacred, in their family. It was a gamble that he almost lost, and the fear is still there, strangling him when he thinks about it too long.
“I’m right here,” she says, dropping into the chair next to his bed.
He flinches. She reads him so well. Too well. “You should have listened to me,” he says, without heat. “I told you to leave.”
“Would you have left me?”
His glare is answer enough. “Do not ask me to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself,” she says, quietly. Seth is still, staring at her. “We can’t keep doing this, Seth. You have to trust me—no more secrets. The entire family is stumbling, wondering what’s next. We have to stand together—and I need you to trust me to do that. You can’t protect me to the point of suffocation.”
He stares at her, and she meets it levelly, her eyes bright and determined. “You know,” he says slowly, “the family will not be happy about the coup.”
She shrugs. “We control the majority of the shares, and enforcement belongs to Tinney—no one has enough backing to dethrone you.”
It’s an ice cold assessment, and he smirks. The brat prince stirs. “The Olivers will demand recompense for Nicolette.”
Her expression doesn’t change, doesn’t falter at all at the mention of the woman she killed. “I know.”
Seth leans back on the pillows in the room his father died in. His head falls to the side, and together, they watch the sun set, the city coming to life with brilliant shining lights. A sea of light, the burning heart of the city they rule.
FINITE
Read how it all began in the novellas, Black Collar Beginnings: Cuba and Black Collar Beginnings: New York. Available now!
BLACK COLLAR QUEEN, book 2 in the Black Collar Syndicate, coming Spring 2015.
AN Latro lives in Florida, where the ocean is her favorite muse. She enjoys wine and tequila, and old movies about the mafia. She loves hearing from readers on Facebook and Twitter.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
